Thaddeus Thawne II (New Earth)
Once the plan was put into action, the Rogues attracted the attention of The Flash, but it was soon revealed that this was Inertia's intention all along: the machine they were building did not stop time, its function was to drain the Speed Force from the Flash (Bart Allen) and transfer it to Inertia, so he could regain natural speed powers and no longer be dependent on Velocity 9. Though Bart did lose his speed, the Pied Piper and Abra Kadabra caught on to Inertia's betrayal and subdued him, before subduing the Flash. Inertia broke away in an attempt to reach the machine and prevent Bart's girlfriend from releasing the Speed Force, only to be tackled and beaten by a raging Flash. As he lay subdued, the other Rogues killed Bart. Flash's Revenge Immediately after killing Bart, the Rogues turned their wrath on Inertia, blaming him for the entire fiasco. Inertia ran, but the arrival of the police forced the Rogues to flee before they could give chase, allowing Inertia to escape. However, at the same time Bart was fighting the Rogues, Wally West, the previous Flash, returned to this plane of existence. Upon hearing of Bart's death, an enraged Flash hunted Inertia down. Though he thought of killing him, Flash decided to instead "do something worse." He used his abilities to slow Inertia's movements down to the point where he was totally immobile, essentially a living statue. He then placed Inertia on display at the Flash Museum, facing statues of Bart Allen as Impulse and Kid Flash. Though he can still think, see and hear in normal time, Inertia was then doomed to spend eternity in a state of near-total paralysis, staring at Bart's images (ironically enough, a variant of the fate that befell Zoom after attacking Linda for the first time). Wally describes it as being "forced to stare, with eyes that take a hundred years to blink... at the ghost of a man he could never be." Rogues' Revenge As he is about to be transferred from the Flash Museum to Iron Heights, Inertia is struck by a red lightning bolt, which frees him from paralysis. Hearing of the escape on the news, the Rogues decide to hunt him down as payback for being manipulated. After killing his guards, Inertia is about to attack Wally West's children, when he is stopped by the very person who freed him: Zoom, who wants Inertia to become a new Kid Flash. Zoom makes him put on Kid Flash's costume, telling him he will help in his quest of making The Flash (among others) "better heroes" by causing tragedies in their lives. Zoom shows Thawne how to affect the flow of time just as Zoom does. Thawne later has a run-in with the Rogues who have been looking for him to extract their revenge. After the confrontation, the villain known as Libra arrives with the Weather Wizard's baby son, saying that if the Weather Wizard does not join his cause he will kill the child. Before Weather Wizard can make a choice, Thawne kills the baby. This leads to Thawne changing his costume and calling himself "Kid Zoom," along with the loss of Zoom's powers. Thawne is beaten by the Rogues and killed. The Rogues then leave a message next to Thad's corpse: "Tell the Flash we are even - The Rogues." | Powers = * : Thaddeus has the ability to alter time relative to himself, as opposed to utilizing the Speed Force like most of the DC Universe speedsters do. He can apparently use this ability to move at "speeds" rivaling those of even Wally West, fastest of the Flashes, and usually, "faster" than the speeds that even Wally can muster in most cases. Since Thaddeus isn't actually moving at super speed (rather, he is greatly slowing down Time relative to himself, and can make himself so "fast" that even most of the Flashes look to him to be moving in slow motion.) The temporal nature of his speed allows him to avoid the usual problems encountered by other Flash-type speedsters (friction, seeing and hearing at such near-light speeds, et al), whose automatic and unconscious use of the Speed Force overcomes those problems. As he is moving at a normal velocity, and the rest of the world is "slow", those hindrances simply do not affect him. This aspect also means that he is unable to become intangible like other speedsters can by vibrating their molecules at certain frequencies, giving them a distinct advantage. He can use his manipulation of time to speed up the molecules of an object or being causing them to vibrate till they explode. He also has the power to steal someone else's personal time by pushing them backwards down their own timeline. | Abilities = * | Strength = | Weaknesses = | Equipment = | Transportation = | Weapons = | Notes = | Trivia = * The name Thaddeus is the Latinized form of the Aramaic word תדא taddā, an appellation one would give to a close friend or younger sibling (its literal meaning is "breast"; an analogous term would be the phrase "bosom buddy"). Consequently, the name itself is best translated as "friend", though other definitions have been proposed, the most common being "heart" (possibly a misreading of the original definition) or "praise" (where this originated is unknown). It is written in its original form thus: תדי. ** It is often used as an alternate name for the apostle Jude, patron saint of the lost and hopeless. * When asked as to who should receive credit for creating Inertia, Ethan Van Sciver stated: "I wouldn't accept credit for that. I think if a pie chart were made of who created Inertia, is would be built of these percentages - Grant Morrison: 25%, Todd Dezago: 50%, Mike Wieringo (who designed the original Impulse costume, which was reversed for the sake of Reverse Impulse) 20%, Me: About 5%, for making him green and black, and giving him blonde hair." ** What Grant Morrison contributed remains unknown. | Wikipedia = Inertia (DC Comics) | Links = *Inertia at Titans Tower }} Category:1999 Character Debuts Category:Titans East members Category:Legion of Doom members Category:Drug Users